How To Make Homemade Polish Pierogi

Ingredients:

2 eggs

½ cup water

2 cups flour

½ tsp salt

Directions:

1.  Mound flour on kneading board and make a hole in the center.  Drop eggs in the center break the yolks.  Add water, salt then knead until it is firm.  Let the dough rest for about ten (10) minutes in a warm bowl and cover it.

2.  Next, you divide the dough into two (2) halves and roll it thin.  You then cut circles, like wontons or ravioli, with a large cutter or a can edge, whatever size you like.

3.  Put a small spoonful of filling, toward the one side, fold over the opposite edge, and press the edges together firmly. Seal each edge carefully so the filling will not run out. You can use some egg white if you wish.

4.  Drop each pierogi into salted boiling water.  Cook gently for 3 to 5 minutes.  With a perforated spoon, lift them out of water carefully.

5.  Never crowd or pile up the pierogi.  Uncooked pierogi will stick together and the cooked ones will lose their shape.

6.  You can stuff them with mashed potatoes, mashed potatoes and garlic, or mashed potatoes and sautéed onions.  You can add parsley with all if you wish.  The following are more ideas for stuffing the pierogi.

7.  You can stuff them with:

* mashed potatoes

* mashed potatoes and garlic

* mashed potatoes and sautéed onions

* mashed potatoes and cheddar cheese

* you can add parsley with all if you wish

* sauerkraut and add sautéed onions if you wish

* sauerkraut and mushrooms

* Plums pitted and mixed with sugar and breadcrumbs sautéed in butter with whipped cream put on them

* blueberries mixed with sugar and breadcrumbs sautéed in butter.  Then make a sugary sweet heavy cream sauce to pour over them

* Try some fruits, apples, cherries, etc. use your imagination.  Make your pierogi sweet when you use fruit

 Varieties of Fillings

 Cheese Recipe #1

1 cup cottage cheese

¼ tsp cinnamon

1 egg beaten

3 Tbsp currants        

3 Tbsp sugar

1 tsp melted butter

Cream cottage cheese with melted butter.  Add other ingredients and mix well.  Fill pierogi.  Serve with melted butter and sour cream.

Cheese Recipe #2

1 cup dry cottage cheese

1 tsp lemon juice

1 egg

1 egg yolk

1 Tbsp sugar

a dash of salt

Push cottage cheese through a sieve and mix with other ingredients thoroughly.

Cabbage and Mushrooms

1 small head of cabbage

2 cups mushrooms

1 small onion, chopped fine

butter

2 Tbsp sour cream

salt & pepper

Quarter the cabbage and cook in salted water for 15 minutes.  Drain, cool and chop fine.  Sauté onion in butter, add chopped mushrooms and fry for five (5) minutes.  Add the chopped cabbage and continue to fry it until blended.  Add the sour cream and let cool.

Sauerkraut

Two (2) cups sauerkraut may be substituted for the cabbage.  Rinse and chop sauerkraut.  Follow the above directions.

Mushrooms

1 cup chopped mushrooms

salt and pepper

1 onion, chopped fine

butter

2 egg yolks

Sauté onion in butter, then add mushrooms.  Season it.  Remove from stove, add egg yolks, and stir well.  When cool, fill pierogi.  Serve with chopped onion browned in butter.

Mushrooms and Meat

½ cup cooked beef

1 onion, chopped fine

butter

½ cup chopped mushrooms

salt and pepper

2 Tbsp sour cream

Put cooked meat through a meat grinder.  Fry the onions in butter until transparent, and then add mushrooms and meat.  Season to taste and add the sour cream.  Let cool before filling.

Prunes

1 cup cooked prunes

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp lemon juice

butter

breadcrumbs

You should soak the prunes overnight. Cook them with some sugar and lemon juice.  Remove stones when cool, and coat them with breadcrumbs browned in melted butter. Now stuff the pierogi.

Ripe Plums

plums

cinnamon

sugar

egg white

Peel and stone the plums.  Fill the cavity with cinnamon and sugar.  Dip the plums in sugar and, if you wish, you can coat them with breadcrumbs browned in melted butter.  Cover with dough and seal edges with egg white.  Try serving them with whipped cream.

Fresh Berries

blueberries or cherries

sugar

Sugar the fruit generously for half hour before using.

 Option: You can make a cream sauce with sweet heavy cream and pour it over the blueberry pierogi

Cooked Fruits

Any fruit preserves or such must be thick.

Apples

6 apples

¼ tsp cinnamon

½-cup sugar

You peel apples use a grinder with a coarse blade.  Mix the apples with sugar and cinnamon, and then cover the cooked pierogi with thick sour cream, buttered breadcrumbs, sugar, and cinnamon.  Bake in an oven at 350° F for 15 minutes.